Supporting R Learners on the Job During Interesting Times

Welcome

These slides available at: https://pm0kjp.github.io/rmedicine_2025_education_panel/slides/r_education_panel.html

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Panel Today

Panel convener: Joy Payton

Additional Panelists:

Ray Balise
Silvia Canelón
Meghan Harris
Ted Laderas

We’ll have a few questions to get started but we want to engage with you, so please use chat liberally!

Hi everyone, my name is Joy Payton, I use she/her pronouns, and I am the convener of this panel. I’m a data science educator in biomedicine and I brought together other educators who work in different areas of the same field, to talk about a topic I think a lot of us care about, which is how to support people who are trying to learn R at work, while they’re busy doing lots of other things. And we’re trying to do this now in what I’ve euphemistically called “Interesting Times”.

I’m going to ask the panelists to introduce themselves and what their primary educational audience is, and I’ll do that in alphabetical order by last name, and then I’ll start asking a couple of questions. Then I’d love to open it up to you, our participants, to engage with us, and make this a dialog.

Let’s get started with our first panelist!

Panelist Ray Balise

Raymond R. Balise, PhD

Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics

Teaches classes for the Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at the University of Miami
- Survey of Statistical Computing
- Software Tools for Reproducible Research
- Data Science and Machine Learning for Health Research
Mostly graduate students studying public health, biostatistics, nursing, psychology
Specializes in asynchronous instruction using R packages like learnr and gradethis as well as synchronous online instruction using tools like Zoom and Posit.Cloud.

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Panelist Silvia Canelón

Silvia Canelón, PhD

Data scientist at the Penn Medicine Center for Health Justice & independent data journalist
Formal training in biomedical engineering, using biomedical and spatial data science in clinical research
Currently working on an accountability journalism project (stay tuned!)
Passionate about data literacy, communication, and accessibility
Lately, I provide informal education and mentorship to other researchers on equity considerations in data visualization 📊

Headshot of Silvia Canelón with a smile, tan complexion, dark eyes, and dark long wavy hair styled to one side. She's wearing a navy blazer over a navy and white striped top.

Panelist Meghan Harris

Meghan Santiago Harris, MPH

Data Scientist at the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium

Author of The Tidy Trekker Website and Blog
Self-taught data scientist and R package developer with a formal educational background in Public Health and Epidemiology.
Currently a Public Health/Data Science mentor at The University At Buffalo School of Public Health and Health Professions for undergraduate students.
Favorite method of “instruction” is written articles/walkthroughs and talks of all kinds.

A professional headshot of Meghan Harris, with her natural black hair, although it is common to see her hair in colorful braids or locs, black glasses, and black shirt.

Panelist Ted Laderas

Ted Laderas, PhD

I’ve worked with many different kinds of adult learners: clinicians, bioinformaticians, biologists, finance, social scientists, engineers, and educators
Currently Director of Training and Community for Office of the Chief Data Officer, Fred Hutch Cancer Center
Recovering academic; focus is on workforce training and psychological safety

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Panelist Joy Payton

Joy Payton, MSs

(For 2 more weeks) Manager of Data Education, Arcus Initiative, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Teach workshops / short courses in data science (R, Python, SQL, ML, AI, NLP, etc.) for biomedical researchers and MD Fellows at CHOP and beyond
Assists in Global Health Informatics efforts (Botswana, Dominican Republic, Panamá)
Occasional adjunct professor / teach for O’Reilly

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Question 1

Vibe coding and using LLMs to write code is enjoying a lot of press these days. Is it still necessary to teach people to write R code, and if so, how much?

Question 2

The title of this panel mentions “interesting times”. What is making your work as an educator particularly interesting these days, whether that’s good or bad?

Question 3

What are some of the tools and methods you find most effective to get people to use their skills and retain their use?